


A Single Spark

by Chaotic_Eclipse



Category: RWBY
Genre: Cinder is a terrible person: the fic, Gen, Spoilers: Volume 6 (RWBY), Violence, but we knew that already, if y'all aren't caught up yet, self indulgent character study, some mentions of body horror, sort of a 5+1 format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 14:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16834615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaotic_Eclipse/pseuds/Chaotic_Eclipse
Summary: The Five Mistakes of Cinder Fall --And the One she's actively making.





	A Single Spark

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the tags this is entirely a self indulgent character study of Cinder that kind of gives a little more of a glimpse of her thought process throughout the series so far. 
> 
> I wrote it on a whim in three days so I don't know how good it is but whatever. Un'beta'd like everything so every mistake is my own. 
> 
> (Also if you're not caught up with Volume 6 there be spoilers here)

_Her first mistake was trust_ , not in the action itself, but the depth of it. In the absolute unquestioning loyalty she offered and expected in return from those who came to serve below her.

She met Salem at the worst point in her life, beaten down, sick and powerless and too tired to stand up for another fight she probably wouldn't win but would try anyway if she could just muster up the energy -

But the older woman wasn't there for a brawl, wasn't there to drag her back down into the dirt and rub her face in it even as she kicked and spat and shoved her blades into ribs and twisted - no, instead Salem placated her anger, speaking to her in quiet tones and soothing gestures, shoulders and expression set to be as nonthreatening as possible. At first it ticked her off more; pity was humiliating, pity meant this woman thought she was pathetic and needed help.

_(She did need help, but she didn't want it if she was just going to be seen as another desperate child that needed to be saved._

_Cinder had done that one already, it had landed her here.)_

Though as Salem spoke she realized the older woman didn't pity her so much as the waste of her talent, of her life. Cinder agreed, but didn't speak, brought into a sense of awe by the woman before her as her anger bled away. Salem was something else, something -- old and powerful, something Cinder couldn't hope to understand but left her wanting to try anyway.

Salem, Cinder quickly realized, startled by a gentle touch from cool fingers, reminding her of the wicked fever she still ran, was offering her a way out. She was offering her the power she craved for the simple price of her loyalty. 

_"You're dying,"_ Salem told her, brushing her bangs out of her face, then kneeling down to her level to look at her more closely. _"That fever is borne of infection from wounds that have had no chance to heal."_

_Dying --_

Cinder knew that word, had been intimately familiar with it for as long as she can remember. They're all dying, it's a constant grind towards that moment when their souls will cease to burn and their bodies will give up around them. It happens to the weak sooner than it does the strong, happens to the unlucky and the afraid. It didn't happen to the strong like Salem, and it wouldn't happen to the determined like Cinder. She'd been fighting too hard and too long for it to catch her now.

There was no accepting defeat or death in the pits, you fought until you tore yourself apart.

What she did accept was Salem's offer, taking her hand and swearing herself to the woman's cause.

She'd burn the world for what it had done to her, and she'd laugh while it happened.

_(In time, she'd pay the steep price for it all.)_

====

_Her second mistake was overconfidence._

Of course she hadn't seen it that way at first, not with how every move she'd made had played out perfectly in the grand scheme of things. She'd flourished just like Salem had promised, become strong and feared, even with only a half of what she'd been offered. The burning hunger in the pit of her drove her forward, it's begging maw reminding her of what else she could achieve, of how much more power awaited her in the deepest parts of Beacon.

But her desire didn't make her foolish, it taught her patience. Each step in her plan continuing to play out at the speed it needed to, each hiccup accounted for and smoothed out with a simple shift of the pieces on the board. She had control, she had options, and Ozpin was aware but floundering; unable to pin her down even when she was right under his nose, sharing his domain and smiling at him in the hallways in their chance encounters. He had no reason to suspect her with how perfectly she'd set up Torchwick and the White Fang to do the dirty work. He wouldn't know that she was the true mastermind until it was too late and she'd sunk her sword into his chest so she could watch the light go out in his eyes.

They called her terrible, but at least she owned up to the monster she'd become instead of hiding it behind the guise of 'saving the world.' The world couldn't be saved, she knew this, stood at the forefront of a force that couldn't be stopped no matter how hard Ozpin tried. Cinder knew one day she would go out like the flame that burned within her, but she also knew that she would take the rest of the world down with her just like she promised.

Kingdom by Kingdom, brick by brick -- hunter by hunter.

It forced her to turn her attention to Ozpin's 'simpler soul' as Salem had called it, his pet project group of hunters and huntresses that caught his interest. That, like the other group before them, he'd put all his faith in and lied to to earn their trust. As little as she thought of them, with how bumbling and uncoordinated the lot of them seemed, she knew better than to ignore them. Pyrrha was the strongest among them, the most dangerous just due to her raw skill and her semblance. Pyrrha put up on a pedestal and untouchable purely by the opinions of people around her, Cinder could almost understand the other's isolation; but while Cinder craved the attention and sense of inferiority those underneath her offered, Pyrrha despised it. 

_(A martyr at heart, that one.)_

Then there was Ruby with her exhaustive optimism. Ruby who weathered everything thrown at her and came out of it with a renewed sense of belief that everything was going to work out one way or another. It would have be been admirable if Cinder didn't find it so annoying. She had to be the one Salem talked about, the one they needed to break down and pick apart first before they moved on to the rest of them.

_"Once the first domino falls, the rest will follow."_

So she sat back and blended in, learned how they all ticked and filed it away for later to use when she stopped playing pretend and showed her hand in earnest. She watched with fabricated horror while her chaos played out around them, nodding along and agreeing to the whispers and the rumbling demand that they had to do _something_. Laughed while Ironwood and Ozpin and all the collective soldiers continued to run circles trying to find out who was responsible for the break in at the tower ---

Then, when she put the last piece in place and _pushed_ she watched as everything fell down into a pattern of beautifully visceral carnage. Hunters and Huntresses struggling to fight back the influx of Grimm in the streets, fleeing civilians torn apart by the monsters or trampled underfoot by their own kind.

Death, she thought, a small smile curving at the edge of her mouth, was much different when you got to observe it from on high. It was terrible and beautiful; darkly poetic when you weren't the one crawling away from it's grasp, watching as life after life was plucked from around you and praying you weren't the one next. She liked it better when she could watch from well without of it's attention range.

That night, she didn't just bring it's gaze on the people of vale, she also walked in it's shadow, delivering three more to it's hold.

In it, she obtained the remaining power she was promised, took it for her own even if it was never meant for her -- she simply made it so, made it bend and fold to see her as the suitor for it. There was no one better, not anymore, not so long as she was alive.

But power, she found out soon after, a shocked exclamation escaping her as she found herself stuck without an action in mind, came with a cost.

=====

_Her third mistake was distantly related to the first; succumbing._

She trusted when she should have been suspicious, when she should have asked Salem far more questions then just where and how. In her drive for power she made the fatal mistake of not finding out it's weaknesses, because everything -- _everything_ had some form of weakness. Cinder hated the reminder of her mortality, of the fact that no matter how much power she obtained she was still human. Even if she stood at the top of the food chain and clawed her way up to the level of a _God_ she'd still --

_She'd still --_

Pain forced her into action, the hellfire scream of it fraying her nerves until she felt too much and the world slowed down to a dulled crawl, blinded by whatever unknown power Ruby had conjured up. Fear drove her backwards, the primal hind-brain kicking her flight or fight instinct straight into the need to go, to get away from this source of agony before she was hurt worse. 

Anger urged her forward, coming in a wave that nearly washed away the panic, her teeth gritting, tasting blood on her tongue as it ran down the back of her throat. Fear wasn't something she ever wanted to feel again, and rage was her answer to it, drawing up the last dregs of her energy and her dust and hurling it all in the direction she knew Ruby to be.

It stopped. It stopped and Cinder felt like she was suspended in air, held by invisible hands and waiting for the fall. A fall that came as sensation flooded back, as the world spun back into a blade sharp focus that dug into her skin and reminded her that she was swallowing blood and her entire left side was a raw nerve.

She didn't scream, but it was a close thing, the sound trapped in her throat while her muscles seized and trembled, while she drowned --

The concrete and rubble caught her, sent her arching off it when the impact sent a new shock of agony through her. Her fingers scraped across, catching glass and stone and scattering it away as she struggled to roll over with only half of her body responding. She crawled, pulling herself across the ground with her one good arm while what was left of the other dragged uselessly behind her.

She crawled until her body gave up and consciousness abandoned her, Emerald's voice the last thing she heard, high and thready with panic, calling her name.

When she woke it was to Salem catching her hand in one of her own, the other running through her hair and smoothing it away from her face. 

She lost track of the days it took her before she was able to walk again, longer still until the constant pain dulled into something she could ignore.

====

_Her fourth mistake was the depth of her anger._

How she let it warp her over the months she spent crawling her way up from the pit she'd been knocked back in to. How she let it rule her when her body wouldn't function the way she wanted and she snapped and left Emerald and Mercury enduring another one of her now famous temper tantrums. Just another thing left shattered and her standing in the middle of it, winded and seething.

How she let it boil underneath her skin when she was forced to endure the endless jabs throw at her by the rest of Salem's lieutenants, mollified only when Salem herself quietly admonished them for being childish. It was childish, and she sneered at them quietly, knowing that if she could still talk none of them would have the audacity to say it to her face anymore.

It was only funny when Cinder couldn't fight back.

And she hated them for it.

Almost as much as she hated Ruby.

It was that hatred that drove her forward now, that kept her training long past what her body could handle and longer still until Salem told her to stop, or reprimanded her for letting her weakness win.

_"I thought you wanted power?"_

She did, turning back to look at the older woman with all the determination she wanted to feel even with every limb feeling like lead and her lungs burning. She was strong, her injuries only a minor set back that wouldn't keep her down for much longer because she couldn't afford to let them. Couldn't afford to be useless to Salem.

Uselessness meant Salem would find someone else to fill her place, and Cinder wouldn't allow that. This was were she belonged, were she deserved to be.

" _Then stop holding **back.**_ "

As if she was _afraid._

_(She wasn't, fear was for cowards and Cinder was anything but.)_

She cut the Grimm she faced in half.

Over and Over and Over until it became mindless and numbing and then second nature. Until she felt at home with the fire underneath her skin and her senses adapted to the lost eye and the Grimm arm. She wasn't what she was, was distantly aware that the smooth confidence and sharp, unerring thought processes she used to possess was dulled by her need for vengeance and her arrogance at her new found power.

She believed, without a doubt, that she could make up for the difference.

_(She was wrong.)_

=======

_Her fifth mistake was Raven._

The her from before would have known better, would have known it was all a cheap trick so the older woman could stab her in the back later. But Raven knew exactly what it was she wanted to hear and wanted to see, knew that she wasn't on her game ever since the person that was Cinder Fall had been upended and scattered across the floor all those months ago.

She hadn't been able to pick up all the pieces and fit them in all the right places, instead working with an oddly put together puzzle with too many loose bits and cracks in the face of it. Cinder had a feeling that maybe Raven shouldn't be trusted, yet dismissed Arthur's warning purely out of spite and her own belief that she could seize both the artifact and the Spring Maiden's power without much issue. 

You didn't need to trust someone to work with them if you could come to the right agreement. Raven wanted a chance at her brother, Cinder wanted access to the vault. She held up her end of the bargain, setting up the meeting with relative ease and waiting. 

She relished in it, in the mockery of it, drinking in their pain and their anger. Toying with them when she knew the man she fought had no chance against her, he never did, never would. Not so long as she kept improving, kept gaining more and more until she reached the level Salem needed her at and more --

Cinder wanted to kill them, destroy them all right on the spot and leave them in pieces to bleed out and watch while she took the artifact and left. She wanted to grind this boy under her heel until he was nothing but bloodied dust for even thinking he could challenge her. But she didn't have the luxury, swallowing her anger and setting it aside for another day, another time.

_(She expected the sword in her back but the depth of the trick Raven managed to pull on her was both amazing and infuriating --)_

It was the second time she felt suspended, hanging and falling all in one motion, staring up at Raven and swearing that one day she'd make her pay but knew it wouldn't matter if she hit the rocks below and shattered into a thousand shards again -- 

_(She couldn't breathe, her lungs screaming at her in demand for oxygen she couldn't supply.)_

This time she wouldn't come back from it, the freezing burn of the ice encasing her reminding her how fragile she was. How a single impact with anything could easily shatter a part of her that would end her life. She'd failed and this was her punishment, this was what she brought down upon her by working with a woman she should have killed the second she had a chance. Her need jeopardized everything, her actions no doubt would infuriate Salem...and if she survived...

If this fall didn't kill her, Salem wouldn't want to see her back until she made up for her mistake.

So be it.

She almost accepted the inevitable, drifting at an indeterminable speed for a time so long she wondered if she'd already hit the ground and was hanging between life and death a second time, absent until she faded completely. So she let herself go, let her consciousness slip into the blissful quiet of cold and nothingness --

_No._

Her fall didn't end in rock but water, the impact with it jarring her awake and splintering the ice keeping her caged. It was just as cold, shards falling away and leaving her numb down to her bones, the cold seeping in and locking her in place even as she struggled. But she wouldn't die here she _refused_ not like _this_. She channeled whatever she had left, turning it inside and burning the numbness and the cold away, forcing her muscles to move through the protests and the pulling tears she felt, swimming to the surface to gasp for the air she desperately needed.

She found freedom in her weakness, killed another for her clothes and hid out to recover her strength.

=======

_Her sixth mistake --_

She wasn't sure what it was shaping up to be, maybe it would be working with Neo, since she knew how the other woman felt about her and Cinder didn't trust her about as far as she could (literally) throw her. After Raven she was sore and bitter and more than willing to bed despite their common goal, Neo would attempt to kill her again the second she got a chance. They'd use each other until they got what they wanted, then that would be it.

Or maybe her mistake was disobedience, putting her own desires above Salem's despite the older woman's explicit warnings. She should have known better, known that patience would have paid off just as much as the approach she took, if not more. Should have accepted that coveting power would been her undoing, it had already happened once, and it happened again.

She would get what she deserved, what was rightfully hers one way or another. 

But first she had to bring Ruby and the rest of her little friends down and present their heads to Salem as payment for her wrong doing. The artifact would just be a nice little bonus. All she had to do was catch up to them before they reached Atlas.

That was the true challenge.

**Author's Note:**

> Come catch me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/modulatechaos) I guess cuz Tumblr is even more of a trashfire then it was.


End file.
